Abortion Rights and Ultra Conservatism with Amanda Coakley

In this episode Ivan Vejvoda speaks with award-winning international correspondent and Europe's Futures fellow Amanda Coakley about the rollback of women's reproductive rights in Central Europe. The discussion charts the effective outlawing of abortion in Poland, when a judgment of the country's constitutional tribunal came in to force in January 2021 limiting abortion to cases where the pregnancy was the result of a criminal act or where the life of the mother was at risk.
In this podcast they ask why some countries have moved toward restrictions of this kind while others, like Coakley's native Ireland, have seemed to progress in the opposite direction. What are the social forces underpinning this shift in attitudes and what role have ultra-conservative organizations played?